People Of The Scorpion
by NightMary
Summary: Heavily re-written! Not the same story as before!/ When she woke up alone after crashing her car on the side of the road, she thought she had narrowly escaped hell. What she did not realize was that hell comes in many guises- as well as the devil himself.
1. Prologue Burden in My Hand Revised

**Chapter 1: Prologue (Burden in My Hand) (Revised Chapter)**

**Warnings: This story contains: Severe Violence, Language, & Content That May Not Be Suitable For A Younger Audience**

_Disclaimer-- I own naught that is copyrighted, ect, ect. in this story._

**(Revised) Author's Note:** This is not a story for the light of heart.

If you think that you're a fan of horror, then by all means, pull your chair up, grab a cup of something, usher your younger siblings or better half who may be of the faint of heart out of the room, and go on this journey with me. They await you.

--_**Mad Red Queen**_

**_Follow me into the desert,_**

**_as thirsty you are_**

**_Crack a smile_**

**_and cut your mouth_**

**_and drown in alcohol_**

**_'cause down below the truth is lying_**

**_Beneath the riverbed_**

**_so quench yourself and drink the water_**

**_that flows below her head.-- first lines of "Burden in My Hand" by Soundgarden_**

* * *

_I know why you're here. You want to know about me- my past. You, no doubt, want to know if I'm ready for this. All of this. But, despite what you may have heard about me, The only thing really different from me and someone on the outside is, well... my physical problem. Other than that, this could've very well been anybody else who'd be here, right now. _

_But, I will tell you my story. It's want you want, and I won't let you down- on this day, at least, I'm feeling alot kinder than normal. I already know where I'll start.--_

I think it really hit me that the life as I knew it previously had ended when the storm near the edge of the New Mexico desert broke. Desert storms are freak occurrences, and it only added to strange existence that had been getting weirder and more frightening as time wore on for me.

At the end of the journey I was jet set on was a house. A big one- the kind that kind of looks like a cabin, with a steeple roof, rock on the lower level, and wood on the upper levels. The house in question was owned by my only living relative- Winnifred. I wasn't worried about whether or not Winnie would take me in- I knew that Winnie would never turn me away- she's sweet like that. A kind, beautiful, and forgiving soul- pretty much everything I can never be. Heck, she was even the person who had warned me beforehand about Dave- the person I was running from.

My husband.

My darling younger half-sister had always hated and mistrusted him. As I sped towards either my salvation from him, or my prison if I did not flee quickly enough, I realized that every worry Winnie had ever had since I married him was true. Absolutely fucking true.

Now that I think of Winnie, I can remember the years in which Winnie and I grew up together, although it feels as though it was long, long ago.

As kids, we grew up as if were no different in blood because of the fact that both of mothers had abandoned us- her had died, and mine had abandoned me- to live with our only blood connection. Our father. We were so un-alike that no one would ever believe that we were related: she was a blond, blue-eyed, tall as hell, and a person who could just walk into a room and have people who automatically would want to be her friend approach her.

I, on the other hand, have always been a polar opposite, as you can obviously see. I'm short, dark, foul-mouthed, rageful, dysfunctional, and a neurotic mess right from the get-go.

My biological mother seemed to be very close to pure Indian (American Indian), which would explain my dark skin, my hair, and my eye shape. Her heritage and her resemblance to her ancestors seems to be one of the two only things she passed onto me. The other thing I'm certain she passed onto me like a nasty, horrible fucking curse is how my right hand is malformed. My pointer and thumb are fine, but my middle, ring, and pinkie are fused together, making them impossible to move. I've always considered it hilarious how fate can plan everything out for you to considerably fuck your life right out of chances you would have been happy with.

Doesn't matter much now.

As I remember the fateful night of that storm, I can remember that the only thing I felt really bad about for going to Winnie's- besides the obvious marital guilts- was the fact that I hadn't bothered to call Winnie before driving out of Utah. However, I knew that I had done what had been needed to be done in that respect since I was worried about Dave being able to trace any calls I might have made prior to escaping almost a week before the storm at the edge of the desert.

My husband, you see, was a man who had grown up with practically all of his male family members in the marines or the army, and he was no exception. He was practically married to his job as a recruiter for the Marines while he was not going into any "action" anytime before I had left him, since he had still been in trouble for having beaten another man bloody for tripping him jokingly one day in the cafeteria while still in training. Oh boy, but he was so _angry _about not being able to even go to Iraq.

Based on the beatings I had been getting via him in the last few months that I had lived with him, I was frightened of what he was capable of if ever worked into a real rage if I ever fought back. I rarely ever did fight back verbally, but I never fought back against him.

He made a mistake with me, though- he forgot that he had married a foul-mouthed, rageful, and bitchy woman. So, when he left one day to go do the recruit-thing at a local high school, I put a plan that I had thought out for weeks into action.

As soon as he drove out in his gas-burning SUV, I ran around the house, collecting articles of clothing, notebooks that I had kept back from when I was young, and anything else that I wouldn't be happy about him burning if he got mad enough to torch or throw all of my stuff out. My CD collection was the thing I was the most concerned about, as ridiculous as that sounds. But, hey, my CD case is a monster- it's about as tall as my arm, and I didn't want him to burn it as he had once done to a few things I had when he was angry with me. I packed all of it into the backseat of my car and in the trunk, everything that I could fit, and that I couldn't bear to think of as completely destroyed.

As I was about to leave, I debated putting make-up on before I left while I was drying off from my quick shower. It would take more time, but it was better than having people staring at the bruises on my face or the black eye I had as left-overs from the night before's particularly fun fight involving left over lasagna and something about the toilet being broken. I quickly put make-up on before getting dressed, but I was still worried about the bruises on my arms and legs. He was a careless bastard, I'd give him that, and if I had the time, money, and support I could've easily sued him for what he did to me.

But I knew I couldn't while I was still near him and too far away from Winnie to be safe- and I didn't want money. Money's a petty thing to ask to make-up for two years of hell and covering yourself up so that people just stare at your right hand instad of the black marks on your face, arms, or legs. It's not enough to cover up the emotional and mental injuries sustained when he comes home, sees you, and drags you to the bathroom to try to drown you in the bathtub while barking that you are _ugly,_that he should have chained you to a doghouse outside rather than let you live inside with him. Any amount of money anybody could've thrown at me would've made me feel pretty damn offended.

For some reason that I'll never understand, though, I was always lucky in that he never killed me. Somehow, he always came out of his black-out rage in time to see what he was doing to me in time to pull my head out of the either freezing cold or boiling hot water. I woke up about three times on the bathroom's hard floor after having passed out from near drowning during those two years. The funny thing was that every time I walked out of the bathroom after that, I always found him splayed out in _his _armchair (Always _his _armchair when he referred to it, not _the _armchair, the territorial prick), eating a case of Oreos with a huge glass of milk. The sight reminded me, eerily, of a child watching the television.

It was always a disturbingly childlike moment after the horror of realizing that he almost killed me- and had left me in the bathroom to either regain consciousness or die. I always wondered, during those strange times, what he would have done if I had never woken up one time.

Things like that will invariably haunt me until I die and my body is burned to ashes.

I don't believe that I ever put on clothes and shoes faster than I did when I left. I raced out to my car, jumped in, and never hesitated before I drove off, leaving the dirt-brown one-story back on Cherry street with only one person living in it. As I drove off, I could only wonder what would get him to realize I was gone- and when he would realize it. The thought frankly terrified me.


	2. Rose Red Rain Revised

**Chapter 2- Rose-Red Rain (Re-Revised)**

**Author's Note:** This is one of the longer chapters, so I recommend you go get a sandwich, some tea, orange soda, or some coffee if it's currently 3 A.M where you are. Actually, if it's 3, get some sleep. You can read this in the morning, I promise. If it's NOT 3 where you are, then I'll just sit here and wait for you to get a snack... Okay, you're either back or you're full. Read and enjoy.

Lovingly (in)sane,

--_**Mad Red Queen**_

* * *

As the water from the storm outside drummed on the top of my car in metallic taps, my left hand twisted nervously on the steering wheel. I was hoping- wishing, more like it- that the water drumming lightly on the roof of the car would not turn into a wholly unpleasant thunderstorm. I had a few more miles yet to drive until I would reach Harrisburg, which was the last town on this mostly deserted trail through the New Mexico desert.

Based on the map I had meticulously looked over three hours ago at a gas station, I knew that there was a bed and breakfast there that I could sleep at for a couple of hours before sunrise. I was on a tight schedule ever since I left the house, and I kept getting the feeling that he (Dave) was never far behind no matter how fast I drove or how short I slept in Inns. After I crossed the New Mexico desert, I hoped that I would get far enough from him and close enough to Winnie to be safe from his reach.

I gripped the wheel hard as I felt the drum-beats on the roof above my head turn into more metallic thunk-thumps. As I gripped it, I felt something begin to cut into my left ring finger. I looked down, and saw that it was the pale gold wedding band that I still did not want to take off yet.

It glowed an unpleasant yellow in the eerie light of the old ford's beat up headlights, mocking that I was just a sterotypical battered wife. I WAS still wearing his ring, wasn't I? What a sheep I was.

Without humor, I began to remember that day three and a half years ago when Dave had given it to me, with a few loving words, which amounted to, "Marry me, babe." Most old couples would say that three years in a marriage is a very short amount of time- I dare any members of those such couples to spend time with Dave, and then tell me about how much they'd love to be married to him for two horrible, nightmarish years.

I looked at the sign that had sprung up out of the darkness, and saw the town of Harrisburg's town sign proclaiming it as "Harrisburg: City Of Friendship". I highly doubted it as much of a city with its population (two thousand strong, the sign proclaimed). However, if it just had a bed I could pay to sleep in until morning, I wouldn't give a shit if it called itself the town of Bum-Fuck or Aborted Fetus-ville.

It was getting late- I probably only had seven or six hours at the most until sunrise, and a good nap in the middle of nowhere, USA in my car seemed less than ideal. Aside from that, I also had the major worry of trying to out-run my husband who was most likely driving his SUV down to Texas. Hoping to catch me before I hit Winnie's, and got away from him for forever. If he was as wily and intelligent in that animalistic way that I knew him to be, he would know that I only had Winnie to turn to.

I hoped against hope that he had instead chosen a less hassle free way of getting there, but I doubted that he would risk me getting to Winnie's before he could get me. He would also probably find his chances better at chasing me by car so he could track me and question people I might have come across. I knew his dark heart all too well.

I had tried to keep a low, low profile, but even a passerby garners some attention if she has to get somewhere and needs directions. Or buys newspapers and food. My only hope that he didn't ask the right people and got turned into the wrong states to chase after me, or that maybe (hope against hope!) that he had decided that it would be too much of a hassle to follow me. Imagine if he decided to leave his unhappy wife to pick up the pieces of the life he had sabotaged to move on with his own!

I reached the beginning of the town just as the storm that I had been fearing came- I could barely see the buildings and houses surrounding the road for all of the silvery blades of rain that fell on the sidewalks and road all around me. I drove until I saw a sign in front of an almost run-down looking house that read, "Newark Bed & Breakfast." I pulled into the small parking lot attached to the side of the house and parked it.

As I walked into the entrance, I saw that an old woman with almost tacky purple-framed glasses was flipping through a book in one of the old plastic yellow chairs in the living room/converted waiting room. As I walked closer to her, I realized that it was a large print romance that she was reading.

I reached the counter and rang the bell. I waited a while when no answer came before I rang it again. Still no answer.

I did it another time, and that time a snappy voice behind me said, "Can you _wait _for a second so I can finish this chapter?"

I turned around and saw the old woman from before looking at me from above the frames of her glasses before she looked back down at the pages of her book. I stood, staring at her until she abruptly stopped and shoved a bookmark in it. "How long are you going to be staying?" She asked, walking to the other side of the counter.

"One night."

"Oh. When do you want to be woken up? I wake up early." She had a pen out now, and she was scribbling on a pad of yellow legal paper as I spoke.

"Um.. when would you say is sun-up?" I said, looking down at my wrist watch.

"Six in the morning. I'll wake you up then. Hold on a second- here's your key. By the way, my name's Kate. I'll wake you up at six then, alright? Oh, and I'll make sure you get some food in you before you step out the door."

"Oh no, that's not necessary, I've got some stuff in my car-."

"No, no, no, you know it's impolite to turn down a meal from a southern girl. Don't you worry, I LIKE cooking, and if you don't like it, I'll feed it to my husband whenever he wakes up tomorrow."

She took my hand and began walking me up the narrow old wood spiral staircase to the right of the room. Halfway up the stairs, she continued talking to me through a slight pant. I guessed that she wasn't used to going up and down stairs too often.

"I don't hardly get customers here except for Gerald who lives upstairs- he's too cheap to buy a damn house in town, so he rents a room from us, but he pays for his own (pant) food. Like hell if I'd share my own (pant) food with that unsavoury man. If he blasts any of his godd- (pant)-damn rock music while you're trying to sleep, you come to me. I don't recommend trying to talk to HIM, since he barely listens to Lou- that's my husband- as it is (pant), but he always listens to me." she smiled then, but it turned into a grimace as she climbed two more steps. As I thought of whoever Gerald was, I wondered if I should tell her that I was someone who was fond of blasting music as well. Some of it, admittedly, rock, but most of it oldies in one form or another.

"If he doesn't listen to me, then shoot, I'll just boot his ass out." she said, making a loud, barking laugh, gripping the old, slightly tarnished railing of the staircase. "So, enough about him- where are you from? I mean, I'm only guessing, but I'd say you're from town or from somewhere near here."

I shook my head. "Try Utah."

"Utah?!" She made that barking laugh again. "Well, ain't THAT a kick in the pants! Where are you headed?" We were finally nearing the top of the staircase after that long drudge. I was relieved.

"Um.. Texas."

She stopped walking. "You're crossing the New Mexico Desert?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Well… yeah. I mean, it's not like I'm the first-."

She looked at me, and all traces of humor behind the silly loud-colored glasses were gone. She came so close to my face that I could smell what smelled like vinegar on her breath, as if she had been previously munching on a pickle before I came in.

"Well, I'm tellin' you right now- be careful out there." her voice, previously warm and filled with laughter, had become fearful. I felt a faint shiver, and I suddenly knew that she was not simply trying to scare me or try to warn me about the heat. Everyone knew about the intense heat of the desert, but that wasn't what she was warning me about.

"Why should I be careful?" I asked in a low voice. I should have kept my emotions in check- but I paid for it.

In my mind, I heard laughter- insane laughter. Kate's lined, serious face disappeared beneath a shiver of pure white. It took me a moment before I realized that I was staring at a white fabric. In the background in my mind, I could hear the screaming, growing in intensity before a quavering, panicked voice begged and begged.

"Please, please- NO, NO, OH GOD, KILL ME, JUST DON'T-"

The voice suddenly cut off with the sound of something hard striking something soft. As it did it, the white fabric became bright, rosy red with a spurt of blood. The voice that was begging, a feminine, light voice, started to scream even louder, and a male, masculine voice spoke this time, enraged.

"YOU FUCKERS- I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU- KILL ME, JUST DON'T!-"

That voice, too, was silenced with another loud bang- but no screaming could be heard from the male this time. But the female, she screamed even louder, this time howling words in a gurgled way- as though she was talking through a mouthful of mush. "NO, PLEEEEAAASSSHHHH, DOAN COMMPPP NEAR ME!" The sound of fabric being torn, and the screaming was mingled with an animalistic- yet disturbingly- human roaring...

And then the vision died off, allowing me to, once again, look into Kate's face. I could, however, still hear that screaming and roaring, though. But it slowly edged off, as though I was being pulled away from the source until I could only hear the echoing of only the loudest roars, and the most hysterical of sobbing. I tried to look as though nothing I had just seen had taken place in my head- but I guess the nightmare I just heard was too much to have not shown on my face. Kate looked worried- hell, worse than worried, Downright frightened.

"A-Are you O.K?" she asked me, placing her wrinkled, pale hand on my shoulder. I immediately reached up to her hand, and worked my hardest on putting on a reassuring smile. I think I did an alright job.

"Yeah. So, what were you saying about me being careful about?"

I was lucky- she seemed genuinely worried, and seemed to have shaken off my moment of panic off easily, abandoning it to get back to the important business of whatever it was she had to tell me. I knew that whatever she was going to say had something to do with the bright red-stained fabric, and the screaming... Eh, but you know why I saw those things, don't you?

She wiped at her mouth with her hand, her face losing its earlier look of concern for a more haunted expression. "Now, I don't say this to everybody- you understand?" I nodded. She continued. "But… people who go through the desert out there… most get out of there on the other side just right and fine… but some…"

I shivered. "But some.. what?"

I feared the answer then maybe even more than if I heard Dave come rampaging up those spiral stairs after me then, but I suddenly HAD to know. Even if odds where that she was a crazy old lady who really believed every word she said, or a local who liked to scare tourists or passer-bys. But, there was a great chance that she wasn't blowing a proverbial smoke up my ass. If I had seen what I had seen earlier for real, I knew damn well that whatever she had to say had to be real. Had to do with a horror of white fabric and the begging for mercy- for death.

"But some don't go through there alright, don't come back. Not everyone of them disappear- you understand? But just enough. Just enough to be more than just a... weird happening. Now, I'm not saying that.. that there are animals or anything par'normal out there, but all I'm saying is that there's SOMETHING goin' on out there, and I wouldn't want one of my previous customers to become one of the freak disappearances like my.. like my…" it then hit me that she spoke in a very different accent than what she had been talking in earlier to me- it sounded distinctly southern, as if she had been born and raised in South Carolina or the like. I looked at her closely, wanting her to tell me who it was that disappeared. I waited for her to speak, but she was silent for what felt like a long, long while before looking up at me with what I guessed probably correctly to be a fake smile. A mannequin's smile, I guess. "Just be careful out there, that's all I have to say." she turned away quickly- but not before I could see a look that summarized how I always felt when I woke up on the bathroom floor, and found Dave chowing through a case of Oreos. Dead, as if something horrible was pressing down on her life- something that she didn't want to think or talk about conversationally.

We walked up in silence until she finally came up to a door a little ways away from the stairs. She opened the door slowly.

The room itself was little more than a floral patterned double bed, a worn TV dinner stand, and what looked like (and I couldn't believe I was seeing it, even around these rural parts!) a black and white TV. In the corner of the room was a large armoir that I would not use, and a filthy window.

"Well, if you're going to use the bathroom sometime, it's downstairs behind the counter. The door on the right, not the left."

I stepped into the room and turned around to look at her. "Well, thank you, Kate."

She gave me a faint smile.

"Good night, Kate, and thanks for the warning." Her eyes darkened for a moment and she looked at the old carpet on the ground.

"Thank… you." She said in a very dreary, slow voice. "Have a good night." she shut the door, leaving me to my own devices for once ever since she had met me. My own devices turned out to be me staring at the ground for a heartbeat, and trying to concentrate on what I had seen earlier.

Maybe I should've been joyous; something to think about that had nothing to do with Dave, for once, might have been therapeutic. But, it was not to be. I was scared- maybe even worse than just simply scared, like how you'd feel after having a horrible fright.

I stood there awhile, wondering on the importance of all of the strange things I had seen. I was usually very hushed about the visions I sometimes had, and although I wasn't an exactly superstitious person, I was always making assumptions about the power I carried with me when I saw visions. And for good reason; the last time I had seen something that bad, it was on my marriage day.

In the end, I tried to force another vision on myself; I used to be able to do that whne I was younger and more okay with it, you know; force myself to see whatever it was fate wanted me to see. But I couldn't.

A part of me (possibly the sane side of me) was saying, _Good, it's __a great thing that you're beginning to lose touch with it. It's just another thing that makes you a freak and easy prey for a bastard like Dave. _I gave up in the end, grudgingly, to fall asleep on the bed with every blanket but the sheet under the blanket kicked off the bed because of how hot it was in the room, rainstorm or not.

I looked down at the ring on my finger, and I gathered the strength to pull it angrily off of my finger, and sat it down on the table next to the bed. I didn't know _what _I was going to do with it, but I couldn't stand to have it on my finger any longer. I looked down at the finger where it had been, and I stared at that pale ring shape that had been colored into my skin, where the ring had been and had left my skin there as pale as a vampire's flesh.

I shut my eyes slightly, and rolled over to look at the opposite side of the bed to stare out the window.

I lied there with my eyes open, staring out the dirty window at the long streams of water that coursed down the glass of the window from a background of darkness and the occasional flash of lightning. The thunder booming gave me comfort, as it reminded me of more than one night as a little girl, with Winnie sneaking into my room in the dead of night to hop into bed with me because of how scared she was of the thunder and lightning. I was never really scared of those noises- the one thing I had in spades more than Winnie besides ugliness was bravery.

I eventually fell asleep only by trying to flush that vision out of my head, and by eventually sinking into thought about Winnie.


	3. Out Of Town Revised

**Chapter 3-- Out Of Town (Revised)**

**Author's Note:** Again, revised. I recommend that if you're a fan of this story, you re-read the revised chapters. Thanks.

**_--Mad Red Queen_**

* * *

True to her word, Kate woke me up the next morning at six o'clock. I was planning to pay her and leave, but she offered to share some of the breakfast she was going to make. I tried to turn her down politely, but she still wouldn't take no for an answer, and had offered to let me use her shower since I had told her that I hadn't showered in the last three days I spent on the road.

Well, I have to say, I suddenly felt like getting some cool water on my skin and eating something cooked before heading back onto the road. I ran back to my car, and pulled out some clothes to put on once I got finished in the shower.

She started breakfast just as I hopped in the shower (I could hear the frying pan sizzling). Afterwards, I bent over her sink, and put some toothpaste on my finger and began to scrub at my teeth, all the while wishing I had bothered to pick up my toothbrush from the backseat.

When I got finished, I was about to walk into the kitchen when I heard two voices, Kate's, and someone else's that I couldn't recognize.

Kate: "There's something... well, _off _about her."

Unknown Male: "How so?"

Kate: "Well, last night, I was talking to her- and she just, well, looked all scared. I was afraid she was having a heart attack."

Unknown Male: "Huh. Well, just from listening to you, I can narrow this down to two choices: A, this place is haunted. or B. she's fucking nuts. Seriously, Kate, can't you try you hand at screening? What if she had snapped, and had decided to go in my room and slit my throat- or rape me? I might not have minded getting raped, but-"

Kate: "Oh, you pig. All I'm saying is that there's something off about her, and I'm not sure I like it."

At that moment, I decided to walk a good distance away, then walk to the doorway, clopping on the ground loudly, to let them know that I was coming. As I guessed, when I walked into the room, both people were staring at me. Kate looked very embarrassed- rightfully so- and the man was just staring at me, no hint of care in his features.

"I'll just pay and leave." I said. I felt angry- sure, talking about someone behind their back is and will always be wrong- but I couldn't blame them. Not many people ever could get over how odd I was- I doubt that even a saint would've been able to stand being around me for very long.

"Oh, oh no," She said, looking flustered. Did she guess that I had, indeed, heard her, or did she think that I had caught snippets while I was "walking" to the door? "Please, sit down, it'll be done in a minute."

I didn't feel like arguing. I was guessing that I probably didn't have much food left in my back seat, so I sat down, putting my neat pile of clothes next to the weathered place mat she had. She had the two plates on her side of the table, and she looked ready to take mine to my side of the table when I heard coughing on the other end of the table. It was obviously intentional.

The man on the other end of the table looked, well, scruffy. He had a bad case of five o'clock shadow, which covered his chin, cheeks, and on his upper neck. He wore jeans that were so old that they were nearly color-less, and a black wife beater.

"You're Layla, huh?" he asked, never taking his eyes off of me. I noticed that they were a very dull shade of brown. I didn't answer, instead staring blankly forward, listening to the noise of the plate Kate was placing in front of me clanking loudly on the table.

"Answer me." he said. His eyes were still stuck on me, and I eventually gave up, deciding that some people just never want to take no for an answer.

"Yes." I leaned forward to look at him, imagining my eyes drilling holes into his. I then casually allowed my eyes to slide away from his and wrapped my hand around the fork Kate had placed next to the plate.

"Well," he said. "I'm what you might call the "bad boy" around here. My name's Gerald."

"Faaacssinating." I didn't look up at him as I began to eat, intending to guzzle this mess down quickly so I wouldn't have to listen to him yak. I was eating my way through my first egg when Kate came up next to me, holding a glass of milk. "Here you go, ho-" she stopped mid sentence, gasping. I turned to look at her and realized that she was staring at my right hand.

I curled my right hand up, fighting the urge to throw it, embarrassed, under the table, and spout off some apology. I was regaining the personality Dave had worked his ass off to kill, but small tics, like apologizing for everything that wasn't even my fault, was something I had to fight. It was Gerald, unfortunately, who broke the silence.

"Oh, dude, she's a freak."

I looked over at him, and glaring. Looking into his eyes, I realized that his previously dull brown eyes where now completely bright, looking at me with a mixture of cruelty and humor. I couldn't help but imagine him as one of those high school kids that delighted in making fun of me, but this one seemed as though he never had the intelligence or decency to grow out of it.

Kate said nothing. Angry, I looked over at her, and snapped, "Look, if it's all the same to you, would you mind not staring at me?" Kate didn't really stop staring at my hand as she went back to her business, but she was a bit more discreet at watching me as I ate with my right hand. Gerald, on the other hand, was less discreet.

"So, what the fuck happened to you?"

"Birth defect."

He took it better than I expected. He laughed and tilted back in his chair. Kate looked up from where she had been putting her pan into the sink to glare at Gerald. "Would you _please _put my chair's legs on the floor?! What are you, eight years old?" He sat all of the legs back on the ground with a loud _thunk. _He stopped staring at me to look at Kate with the same dull look in his eyes as before.

"Can I get some food, too?" he asked.

Kate growled. "I'll give _you _breakfast when I see that one hundred you owe me, or move out. How's that?"

He groaned and tilted his head backwards. "Oh, come _on, _you old bitch. Just give me a piece of bacon or something."

Kate picked up the three extra pieces of bacon on the plate next to the stove and practically threw them at him. Gerald picked a piece up and began munching on it, turning his gaze to me again.

"So, where is it you're heading- Layla?" he asked in between bites.

"Texas."

"Well, Layla," he snorted as he said my name. "That would mean that you're going through the desert, right?"

"You got that right." I said sarcastically. As I said it, I mopped up the last remnants of the puddle of yolk on the plate with a chunk of bacon and pushed my plate away.

"So," Gerald said, swallowing another bite of bacon. "Where in the hell did you get that hand? Was your mom a drinker? A smoker? A junkie?"

I slammed my fork down. I was sick of Kate staring at my hand, and I wasn't going to take another second of his shit, that was for sure. "Here, Kate, this is the forty I owe you for the room." I pulled two twenty dollar bills from my pocket and held it out to her. She stared at the money for as second with a close to horrified expression on her face, and I realized that she was staring at my right hand, which was the hand that I held the money out with. I could remember people staring at me like that when I was in middle and elementary school, and I was so sick of it that I suddenly felt like crying and screaming all at the same time.

I put the money down on the table. "You know what? You didn't treat me like this yesterday, when you thought that I was normal, and it's not right for you to treat me like this now, especially since I stayed in one of your rooms. I hope you have a _lovely _morning."

I stalked out of the room, and I was so preoccupied with how angry I was that I barely heard Gerald's chair scrape the linoleum as he stood up. "Hey, wait for me; would you mind driving me out to Texas?"

I looked back at him. "Go fuck yourself, how does that sound?"

He glared at me. "Well, fuck you very much too, but I'm willing to pay for you to drive me outta this shit hole right now."

I looked at him in disbelief. "Why would you want me to drive you out of here?" _Especially after how he had treated me._

"What? Do you think I want to stay here with the old hag? Well, that, and the fact that I lost my job, like, a week ago. I've got relatives in Texas, and you can just take me as close as you want to where I'm going."

I shrugged. Well, okay, I could believe that. "How much?" I asked.

"Whuh?"

"How much are you going to pay me to take you there?"

He dug around in his pocket. "How does fifty sound? Look, you just have to drive me through the desert and past the Texas state line, and you can drop me near a bus station or something."

"Don't they have bus stations _here?_"

"Uhh.. based on what you have seen of this town, do you actually _think _there's a bus station here?"

He had me there. "Make it sixty and you can come along." I said, my arms crossed over my dirty clothes.

"Sixty?! Look, I said fifty-"

"Fine then, seventy."

"Seventy?! What the fuck, I don't have that much to give!" he practically yelled.

"Fine then." I started to leave when I heard Gerald's voice from behind me.

"Wait, wait, wait. I think I can pay you sixty-."

"I said seventy, not sixty." I said.

"B-but-."

"Wanna make it go to eighty?"

"Nuh-nuh- no, seventy works just fine. Just.. can we please go now, as in right now?"

I nodded. "I was counting on it. Are you sure you've got anything you'd want to bring with you in your room?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I sold everything I had up there last week." I walked out of the house carrying my dirty clothes and not much else. Gerald followed me. "What do you drive?" I pointed out my old powder blue car to him. "Oh, wow," He said, holding back a laugh. "Does that thing run on gasoline or on running?" when I didn't laugh, he coughed. "You know, like in the Flintstones, when they would get in the car, and run to-."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

I unlocked it and got into the driver's side as he climbed into the passenger's side. He looked at me, then back at the things I had in the cardboard boxes behind us, then back to settle on my hands on the steering wheel as I started up.

"You sure you don't want me to drive?"

"No."

"Are ya sure? I think you can-."

"Shut up."

"Okay."

I knew I was being a bit of a bitch, but I didn't really care since I didn't much like him anyway, and I'm sure he didn't much care for me either. Before we rode out of town, I made a stop at a convenience store to buy four bottles of water for both of us, a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch for me, and a tuna fish for him. And as I drove out, I began to think about how I had traded one assholic man for a slightly less worse one, and how I was soon enough going to be with the last family that I had since dad had died four years ago.

All in all, I guessed that things were starting to look up, but a treck through the desert with Gerald was not going to be much fun.

_Oh lord, _I thought to myself, _please let the desert be smaller than people say it is._


	4. Road Tripping Revised

**Chapter 4- Road Tripping (Revised)**

**Author's Note: **O.K, here's where the story starts to get raw- it won't exactly slow down for quite a while following this, so either be in the mood to read something wild, or take your show on the road. It's here that I decided to change from first person POV to- er, third person, I believe. Or omnipotent. If anyone knows for sure, would somebody please P.M me to tell me- because I just don't know.

--_**Mad Red Queen**_

* * *

Layla had to admit after two hours into driving with Gerald. He did an okay job of keeping his mouth shut.

He fell asleep for about and hour, and besides the chronic snoring, he didn't bother Layla. Until, that is, he woke up just as she pulled over to the side of the road to take a break after three hours of hardcore, balls-to-the-wall driving through the desert. She pulled over and started to take long gulps of water from one of the water bottles when she heard the sound of Gerald's irregular snoring stutter into a yawn. She paused to listen to him yawn before continuing to gulp down water.

"Awww… shit. My mouth feels like I swallowed cotton." he stretched his arms up, and Layla heard his bones crack.

"Glad to see you're up." she said sarcastically.

He grunted. "Yeah, yeah... just... give me one of those bottles." Layla threw one at him. He grabbed at it and took a big drink out of it before turning to glare at her. "Why is every bitch I meet today throwing food or water at me?"

"Go to hell." Layla said through clenched teeth as she stared at the scenery to the left of her. She sighed, and took another gulp of water. As she ended drinking it, she felt a drop of sweat traverse down her forehead and cheek. She sighed. Damn, but she only hoped that she would reach the edge of the New Mexico state line sometime **_soon_**.

"I hate to interrupt you in your… thoughts, but when are we going to move this old thing down the road? I AM paying you for a quick ride through the desert, not a tour."

Layla shut her eyes and breathed in deeply. "Of course, of course. Just give me a second before god turns this oven onto scorch."

He was quiet for a moment, then snorted. "Whatever. So, where'd you put my sandwich?"

Layla ignored him at first, beginning to put the car into gear and pressing her foot on the gas pedal before Gerald asked again in a slightly more annoyed tone of voice. She yanked the console between them open. "It should be on the top." Gerald pulled it out and began to unwrap the cellophane covering the two sliced halves of the sandwich. As he took a bite of it, Layla looked over at him. "I don't recommend eating all of that right now."

Gerald took another big bite of his sandwich. "Bite me." he said through a mouthful of it.

Layla looked over at him, and gave him a look that summed up how she felt for him in three simple words. _You're an ass._ "Nice. Real classy." she said, turning away from him to watch the road again.

Gerald smiled over at her. "What can I say? I'm a classy guy."

"Yeah, you're **some**thing alright," Layla muttered low under her breath.

Layla drove for a few more minutes before she began to figure that asshole or not, he was going to be hurting in a couple of hours down the road if he didn't try to spread eating the whole sandwich out, because she truthfully didn't think she had anything to eat in the backseat anymore after almost a week of being on the road.

"I'm telling you, you're not going to be happy in a couple of hours if you eat all of that."

Gerald practically shoved most of one of the halves of the sandwich into his mouth before addressing her. "Hey, you know what? Kiss my ass. If you're so worried about me, drop the price you're making me pay." He began to chomp down on the huge bite loudly without closing his mouth.

_Alright, that does it_, Layla decided, _He can shove the rest of that down his pants for all I care._

After an hour in which Gerald amazingly kept his opinions and insults mainly to himself, Layla pulled over on yet another lonely stretch of highway, much to the annoyance of Gerald.

"Why are we pulling over here?" he asked bitterly.

Layla didn't answer him; she just reached in the seat behind her to pull out a new roll of toilet paper. He stared and it, and made a sound of disgust. "You're dropping a dunce out here?"

Layla glared at him. 'No, I'm going to.. umm…." She had the decency to blush, and if Gerald had known her at all, he might have found it hilarious that she would feel ashamed to say pee or perhaps piss since she was usually as foul-mouthed as a sailor. "You, stay put unless you have to make a deposit."

Gerald sat back in the seat and stared at her. "No thanks. You go do that..."

Layla walked out, slamming the car door behind her. Gerald watched her walk past two big rocks and out of sight with his eyes trained on her little ass as she walked out of sight. He had to admit- weird hand or not, she was cute; but he disliked girls who had attitude problems. He liked his bitches (as he oh so chivalrously called his girlfriends) to shut up and smile alot. If Layla had known how he would have liked her to act, she probably would have thrown him out of the car no more than ten minutes into the car ride. Not as if she had wanted to at least twenty times already, anyway.

He sighed, and began to recline back in the passneger's side seat. This was going to be one long, long ride.


	5. Hallucination Revised

**Chapter 5: Hallucination (Re-Revised)**

**Author's Note:** Lizards. Nothing more, nothing less.

--**_Mad Red Queen_**

Layla had gotten done with her business when she saw something scuttling across a rock only a few feet away from her. She was a little fascinated with it- but uncountable hours in a car would have made even a cockroach crawling out from under a rock interesting.

Upon closer inspection, Layla realized that it was a lizard that had run across that rock. She followed it a few steps, enjoying the breeze against her legs and the sensation of being able to _move. _The lizard (It was tan in color), who she expected to be an awkward crawler on the ground, actually ran over the dusty sand as if he were swimming through it. She ended up following it more than a few steps as it skimmed over the sand and almost out of eyesight. Layla never questioned _why _she was following the lizard- why should there be a reason? Especially since she was not looking forward to driving with Gerald next to her again, and it seemed that she was up for any reason to be away from him.

She sighed.

The more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to have some serious doubts about whether or not it was going to be worth the money to transport his ass across the desert. Just as she thought about turning around because the lizard had run away too far away from the road, it suddenly stopped.

_It knows I'm here, and it's going to run away right now._

But it didn't. What did happen surprised Layla more than if it would have actually run away from her, kicking up dust in a sprint to get away. It turned its head completely around to look at her- an action that immediately reminded her of an owl- and stared up at her face.

There was something shocking to Layla about his face- but she couldn't identify it at first until she recognized the two blue orbs where its yellow, serpent eyes should have been.

_Blue..? _Layla thought she must be seeing things. Cold-blooded creatures don't have blue eyes- that's insane. She rubbed her eyes and looked back at the creature who had now completely turned around to look at her, and not with just his head. She looked, and confirmed that those eyes looking at her were not yellow eyes as there should have rightfully been- they were bright blue eyes that now looked up at her. The more she looked at the creature, and the more it looked right back her, she began to get the feeling that there were more than just primal instincts in those eyes. There was almost an eerily human looked of _intelligence _in those blue eyes.

_Why did you bring that awful man with you, hmmm?_ Layla looked back, and suddenly didn't care if she was imagining a conversation with lizard that may or may not even exist.

_Money. _She answered back.

The lizard's eyes seemed to dance with a bright flame that reminded Layla of a gas stove's from under the burners.

_I'd bet my scales that that's not a' tall true. h_e said in a deceptively soft tone.

_Well, it IS…_ _Would I agree to bring him with me if not for money?_

His tongue snaked out to rub at his left eye, but he did not pause in speaking to her. _O? It didn't have anything to do with what you saw last night? Tut tut tut, lying to yourself now._

Wow, Layla thought. For a lizard I'm probably not even really _seeing, _he's awfully cheeky. _Really? And what would you say was my real reason for bringing him, then?_

_You're scared that you'll find something in this lonely, wild place that you won't be able to cope with. And rightfully so, but you don't seem to realize that the man you brought with you is weaker than you. _

Layla gave it a skeptical glance. _REAL-ly? Well, I know he may not be in the top of his game, but he could probably over-power me in a fight._

The lizard took a step forward toward her.

_That's not at all what I meant. Out here, you need more than brute strength to survive. I, however, won't lie; that's a large factor in being out here, but he won't make it but a moment out here if and when you both come across something you won't like. _

Layla paused. Wow, she thought, am I really imagining this conversation like how I used to when I was little? I can't imagine thinking of things like this.

She wiped at her mouth a bit and continued the conversation. "_Something I won't like"? What do you mean by that?_

_It's not my place to say. h_e snapped.

Layla shivered a bit. _Okay… but what should I do if I run into... erm... something I don't like?_

The lizard looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. _...Then you'll live. However, I regret to say this, but that man in your car is _not _one that will be the most helpful to you along your path. When the both of your fates stop short of each other, he and you will either be leaving this desolate land forever, or you both will be... separated._

The lizard stopped then, and Layla could feel the pause almost as if it were physically straining her body. Then it continued talking. _I have already said too much right now, and I must take my leave. Just be warned that you must tread lightly through these lands above all others, for the beasts here are more cunning, more agile, and more likely to tear your throat open here than anywhere else you have ever been. _He stared up at her, unblinkingly, for a moment. A long, long moment. _Do you hear me, young child? Tread lightly and watch where your feet are carrying you. And, watch who you are becoming at all times. Madness can come suddenly and secretly without one knowing so before it is too late._

Layla closed her eyes and opened quickly. She was startled as she realized that the lizard was gone.

What..?

She shook her head to clear the image of those intelligent blue eyes out of her mind before she looked down at her watch. She realized then that, despite how long it felt since she had started off; it was only two hours past the afternoon. She looked up then, at the sky reached out past her line of vision, past the large rocks, and past what little plant-life there was to be had out here.

She had never felt so isolated, or so far away from the sky above than when it loomed above her, surrounding her on all directions and becoming all-one and fused with everything she saw stretching out past her line of vision.

Sighing, Layla began to walk back to her car, stealing a quick glance back to where she had seen the blue-eyed creature that seemed to know more than it should- and more than her.


	6. A Roadside Nightmare

**Chapter 6— A Roadside Nightmare**

**Author's Note:** Here's where things start to really go into a downward spiral- at least, for one or two characters. Anyhoo, I hope if you're re-reading this, you appreciate the corrections I've made.

-- **_Mad Red Queen_**

* * *

As it became closer and closer to sundown, panic began to set into the two in the pale blue car. After spending countless hours together, Gerald was too tired and crabby to insult the driver. Well, at least, to a lesser extent- the fear both of them experienced when the crisis became apparent was enough to make a saint on edge- and neither person in the car was a saint.

"Did you even check to make sure that there were gas stations on this road before you took this way?" Gerald asked angrily.

"There were no maps for this road," Layla answered, gritting her teeth. She had been focused on keeping the car going at a regular speed. The car would use less gas if it was going at a regular speed- she had heard that once from somewhere. "I told you that a minute ago. Either start saying something that means something or shut the fuck up."

Her words had the effect she had wanted- for awhile. Gerald silently looked over at the meter in front of the steering wheel for a long while- at the big E that the arrow was pointing more and more towards.

"You stupid bitch..."

Layla had to fight to not stomp on her brake.

"What the fuck did you say?" she snarled.

"I said-"

"I heard what the fuck you said. Do you think you could have done a better job that I'm doing right now?"

Gerald actually hesitated. "I just think-"

"You just think you could do better than me? Is that what you were going to say- that I'm a stupid cunt and that you'd do a better job than me?"

"Hey now," Gerald said uneasily, gripping at the door next to him. "just calm down- you're driving too fast..."

Layla felt like snapping at him again- but a glance down at the speed gauge gave her a nasty shock. She was nearly going at a hunded miles an hour. She quickly let up on the gas. Her heart was pounding heavy against her chest as fear, already a living thing in her, grew at the thought of how she was letting her anger getting the best of her. She could have crashed, going that fast...

She had always had anger problems- the only thing that had stopped her from its return while she had lived with Dave was through threats and fear. She was not frightened of Gerald, however- if anything she wanted to reached over and hurt him as badly as possible. She was the driver here, and she had a lot to focus on as it was- not to mention that strange thing she had seen while talking to Kate. Was it a warning?

Then there was the lizard- which, if she was to believe that it was real, through some act of sheer imagination- which was most certainly a warning. A warning of _what, _exactly, she had no idea.

On top of everything else that posed a distraction, allowing her anger to run while she was driving was not the best way to drive through this place. Even though she could possibly be dealing with one of the biggest pricks she had ever met.

They drove in silence for one, two, three minutes- but every moment they spent in the car felt more and more oppressive. The very atmosphere of the place felt charged with anxiety, anger, and panic. It was only a matter of time before Gerald opened his mouth again.

He sighed, then whispered under his breath. "Stupid fucking bitch..."

Any promise Layla may have made to herself to stall her anger was quickly forgotten. Rage filled her, hot and flowing. "What was that?" Gerald froze. He looked as though he had not counted on her being to overhear him. Layla repeated herself when Gerald didn't answer, the same amount of danger underlying her voice as before.

And, finally, when it looked as though Gerald had turned to stone in fear, he spoke slowly, staring forward, rarely turning to look over at Layla. "I... I just think you could have picked a more... uhm... main road than this. That's all."

"Well," Layla said in a flat, angry voice. "

"Unless you have a fucking map on you, it'd be good for me to say that the best thing for you to do right now is to shut the hell up."

"Well, yes, but, uhm, why didn't you pick a more main road, instead of, uh-"

"Jack-ass," Layla said, her voice low in warning. "besides the fact that I was obviously dumb enough to think you'd be able to at least keep your mouth shut, you have no idea about me or what in the hell it is I'm doing. So, this is the last time I'm warning you- keep your mouth shut."

Gerald spoke again, his voice full of anger. "Oh, what do you think you're going to do, huh? Drop me off on the side of the road to die?"

Layla shrugged. "Maybe."

Even without turning to her right, Layla knew that Gerald was silently wondering if she was serious. It was a nice few moments of silence. Finally, however, Gerald spoke. "So, what are we going to do- when we run out of gas?"

Layla stopped herself from wanting to ask him about what the whole "us" business was about. It was hard not to want to, however. "Well, what _I _plan to do," she said, stressing the "I", "is to run this thing as far as I can, and pray. A lot." she turned slightly to her right and gave Gerald the wide, eerie grin that stretched tight against her skull. "Unless you have a cell phone on you, you and me both are screwed."

Gerald had the good taste to look shocked. "How... how can you be so calm?! We're both going to die, and... and it's not going to be an easy- we're both going to... to die of heatstroke, or of hunger, or, or because we don't have any water..."

Layla wasn't really listening to anything Gerald said after he asked her why it was she didn't seem to care. The thought that she didn't seem to much care that they could die when the gas really did run out- and without there being any gas stations nearby- was a strange one. Surprisingly, she felt... giddy. It was only a minute ago that panic and fear had been ruling her every emotion, and now she was in some strange twilight area of her mind where all of the trauma she had gone through had added up and added up, and she was past the point of logic and caring.

There was a certain kind of macabre joy in not caring any longer about her own life, as well as the life of the man sitting next to her. It was a kind of dark freedom from the most basic of instincts. Survival. She had even begun to smirk a little.

She was somewhat aware that next to her, Gerald was having a different reaction than her to their situation. Instead of looking over at the gas meter nervously, he had taken to staring at it fixedly, his eyes wide. Layla figured that his shock and fear would allow for a short while of silence, at least.

She got her wish. For a short while, at least.

Gerald began to swallow convulsively. "Why did you want to drive out here?"

Layla had been staring, almost entranced, at the broiling road in front of the car. The sound of Gerald talking brought her out of her own near-trance roughly. For some reason, she wanted to slap him. "What?" she asked, annoyed.

"I asked... I mean, why is it you wanted to drive through Texas this way?"

"Is there something you want to bitch about, where I chose to drive and through what roads?"

Even Gerald knew better than to incite Layla any further. And, despite the fact that he wasn't the smartest man, hearing the rage in Layla's voice halted him from snapping back at her. But just barely. "No, I'm just curious. Is there any real reason you would want to take the back roads to Texas?"

Layla was quiet. In her mind, she was wondering just how much to tell him. She was, by definition, very much of a closed-off person. And Gerald did not exactly make her feel moved to show much of herself to him. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was that she felt a strange bonding with the man next to her, through the growing reality that was that they were unbelievably close to death. But she told him the one thing she had never planned on telling anybody until she was safe in Texas.

"I didn't take the main ways- the highways- because I'm on the run right now."

For a moment, there was a deep silence in the car. "...On the run? Do you have a warrant out for you or something?"

Layla paused. "Or something."

"What?"

"You said that, not me. I guess you could call it "Or something"."

More silence. "So, what is it?" Layla may not have noticed it, but Gerald's panic and worry had all but disappeared from his voice. What could be heard in his voice was annoyance.

"My husband, he..." she stopped, wondering just how much to tell him. "...he's an asshole."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Gerald knew he didn't care- and he wanted more than anything to stop her whining- but he needed to hear the sound of conversation. If only to get his mind off of the pulsing red E.

"Abusive. I guess that's what he was..." Layla paused again. A small river of sweat rolled down her face before disappearing as it wound down her neck and into her wrinkled shirt. "Yeah, that's what he was. Abusive."

Gerald had had a fairly good hold of his usually big mouth during the duration of the car ride. But, as one of the few relatives that was on good terms with Gerald for a few years had once told him, he was a jackass, and he would, eventually, die a jackass one day. And, as had been the cause of most of, if not all of, their actions in the increasingly hot car, it was mostly the fault of the heat and the beat of the sun that Gerald lost any ability he might have possessed to keep his true thoughts to himself.

"Can't blame him."

At first, Gerald did not seem to comprehend what he had said aloud. But Layla had. Her understanding of his words- and of himself- felt as though it had been thrown wide open for her to see. Anger slammed into her mind, giving her a narrowed view of everything around her.

"Who the FUCK do you think you are?!" Layla shouted.

"Wait- please, I didn't mean-"

"You piece of shit, just what pedestal do you think you have the right to stand on and shit down on _me_? In case I was mistaken, you seem to be a sack of shit who's not good for anything except mooching and being a complete dick!"

As she turned to look completely at Gerald, she could have sworn that she heard something that was like someone whispering in her ear. _Watch your actions, or they may be the sum of your life._

If the voice would have had any reaction on her, it was completely irrelevant to her in her anger.

Gerald seemed to struggle. He looked panicked- that was understandable. But, there was something about the way he kept looking forward, out the windshield, then back at her that might have worried her, had she not been preoccupied with glaring over at Gerald. Finally, he spoke. "Yeah, yeah, uhm, I am sorry... can you just, please, turn back to fa-"

"You fuck, you stupid bastard," she snarled. Her fingers had clamped tight on the steering wheel. She never noticed it as she glared over at a more and more frightened man to her right. "You know what your problem is?"

Gerald's eyes stuck on hers for a few moments before he whipped around to face the windshield. His face contorted in fear- then he screamed. It did not click with Layla at first, but as the car jumped, then crashed into the ground, she finally turned her burning gaze off of the man next to her and faced the windshield.

A loud scream retched out of her, then was silenced as her body was thrown forward against her seatbelt. Her head hit the steering wheel that she had previously clamped so tightly, and the fiery pain from where she had whacked her forehead on the wheel faded away slowly as she blacked out. --


	7. Waking Up in Hell

**Chapter 8— ****Waking Up In Hell**

* * *

_In bed In the living room just oh god not the Bathtub please god I want to live_

The air she breathed in was hot. Had all of her inner dialog been a waste of time? Was she already in hell?

Had the bastard had finally done what he had promised her he would do almost every day in the past few months- whether he said it aloud or not?

But, wait, where was the voice of Satan? Surely he would have leaped on her the moment she was thrown down into the fiery pits.

She had always believed that hell was always the worst thing someone could have imagined ever having happen. And, one day, when she had been in a lousier-than-normal mood, she had figured that sex with Dave was always as humiliating and abusive as rape, and that her hell would have to be that she would be raped repeatedly by something particularly demonic. It wasn't a happy thought- she had been decidedly depressed when she had decided on it being her vision of hell- but she had not taken it very seriously at the time she had thought about it.

Now, though, she had no problem with feeling great fear as she could imagine the heat surrounding her to be that of hell's.

Layla came to slowly, and when she finally opened her eyes, she felt a daze so deep she could barely comprehend her surroundings- the steering wheel she was lying on, the seatbelt trussed tightly around her, and the heat that felt as though another, uncomfortable skin covered every part of her body.

Groaning, Layla picked her head up from the steering wheel, and began to struggle with her seatbelt. As she did, she could do nothing except stare forward at the intricate webbing of the broken glass blankly. She blinked.

It took a moment for it all to really sink in. What she was sitting in at the moment was the cheap-ass car she had talked Dave into letting her have- which was currently totaled. The memory of what had resulted in the wreck eventually lead her to a pit in her stomach. Something didn't feel right, as though something was missing. Without really realizing why she was doing it, she looked to her right. Her eyes widened.

Panic as she clawed at the seatbelt, pulling it off, trying the door, feeling even more panic when the door did not open at first, then jerking the door handle until it opened up, the crushed metal of the door screeching as she forced the door open.

Air rushed into her lungs, then rapidly out. She looked all around her, her body never stopping as her gaze sprung to one direction, then the other. All around her was emptiness, with no reprieve in the way of signs of life.

She yelled out, the first few times it was Gerald's name. But, as panic blossomed in her, she yelled out wordlessly before she stopped altogether. She stood out there for a while, half looking around her for a sight of Gerald and half trying to put together what had happened to her.

She stood there for a good two or three minutes before she stepped back and into the driver's side of car. She sat back into the car seat- more slouching into the seat than really sitting down into it. She was frightened.

Where was Gerald?


	8. On The Flip Side

**Chapter Eight: On The Flip-Side**

* * *

_Fucking cunt Stupid bitch Fucking crazy..._

It was finally dark- no more burning sun, no more being scared out of his mind, no more, no more-

He had shut his eyes on the impact of the car going off- or, more appropriately, _running- _off of the side of the road. He didn't know what to think as he opened his eyes. He could have opened his eyes to realize that he had been disemboweled (could that happen? Could he be disemboweled during a car wreck?) or that his head had pieces of jagged glass sticking out of him like he was a pincushion. Anything.

As he allowed himself to re-acquaint himself with his body, Gerald was finally able to heave a ragged sigh. Somehow, he had survived the crash.

After coming to terms with the fact that he was alive, Gerald did what was automatic for him. He pushed the seatbelt off, fought with the passenger's side door for a moment, then climbed through the passenger's side window when the door, as busted up as it was, refused to open.

Another instinct that came over him was the immediate urge to go find a phone. He tore off across the street from the crash, spinning around blindly in the search for a pay phone. Or a person.

It took him a few moments to remember that they were still out in the middle of nowhere, on a basically abandoned highway.

Remembering that, panic seized once more at Gerald.

Okay, he had just survived a horrible car accident; the driver, the driver...

Wait, where WAS Layla...?

Gerald felt what could have been pity. He was a jerk, sure, and he would eventually make the stupid bitch sorry for driving them- him- off of the road, but even a ghoul had to care about somebody who had been with him in a car wreck. Even if the reason had been the other person in the car with him.

He began to walk over to the other side of the road. His foot falls seemed slowed as he walked over to the driver's side. The car was totaled; there was to be no doubt whatsoever about that. The road they had crashed off of was, unfortunately, a little more raised off of the ground from the area around the strip of abandoned highway. The car had hit a little cluster of rocks that stuck out of the sand at a very fast speed. He had tried to warn the idiot that she had been nearing a hundred horses, but the stupid, stupid girl had refused to listen him. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

_If only she hadn't heard me muttering, _he thought bitterly.

He neared the driver's side door. Her window, like his, and like the backs, were open. At first, the contrast from the bright glow of the sun outside and the creepy, almost deathly darkness in the car made it almost impossible to pick out any of the shapes inside of the car. Then, slowly, he began to make out the shape of the woman who now looked more like a rag doll from where she hung onto the steering wheel, limp. Her forehead rested on the top of the steering wheel, so nothing, except from what he could see in peeks in her long, tangled mess of hair, and her shut left eye, was visible of her face. But to Gerald, she looked definitely dead.

He was uncomfortable, staring at the person who had killed herself, and who had, almost, done him in as well,. He had seen dead bodies on TV- sure, who hadn't, right?- but he had never seen one in person. He hadn't even been to a funeral before. He didn't like the idea that somebody who had looked so vibrant in anger before could look so still and broken moments later.

He didn't have to touch her; he would never make himself do that. But he needed to get back in there.

He walked around to the other side and peered in through what had been his side window during the badly fated ride. He was looking for a flash of clear plastic.

And then, there it was. Their last water bottle.

As he reached in, though, he felt inexplicably bad for taking it. He shouldn't, he told himself. She was dead- and dead girls didn't drink water. --


	9. Voice And Eyes

**Chapter Nine- Voice and Eyes**

* * *

The water was a good weight- a sturdy, comforting weight- in his hands as he continued his walk down the road. He had no idea how long he had been walking, but he had stopped being able to look back to see the car wreck a just a little while ago. While he had been thirsty in the car, he had been in such a state of shock that he had no desire to drink from his bottle. It felt like it was all too much at once for him, so all he could do was focus on the landscape around him as he trudged along. It was something more than fear and panic that he felt, especially after seeing the woman collapsed against her wheel back in the car. Since he had begun walking, he had refused to dwell on the corpse he had seen in the wreckage. He had not even begun to think about where all of the events had left him, aside from the fact that all he could do was focus on walking.

He walked a few more steps, trying not to think about anything about his situation. As he walked, he kept a constant look-out for anything that might appear on the horizon. Not that he truthfully believed there would be anything, deep down where it counted. As he scanned the horizon, he felt a chill go up his spine. Despite the heat, Gerald hated what he felt in the chill. It took him a few moments before he recognized the what he felt as feeling as though he was being watched.

Even though he knew that was impossible- it was so deathly quiet out there in the desert that he would have heard somebody coming up in the distance in a vehicle- he spun around. Nothing. No one, not even an animal, was out there, watching him. So, why did he feel so strange?

His heart uneasy, Gerald finally unscrewed the cap of the water bottle and downed some of what little was left in the bottle. Even the crisp taste of water heated in a car and baked by the sun couldn't take his unease away.

Gerald did the only thing he could do.

He continued walking.

He had just barely switched the bottle from his right hand to his left when he felt more than heard the whispering voice. _You're walking into danger, boy._

Gerald froze mid-step.

The fuck?

_This is not the right way towards your salvation. You may think that the only option you have is to walk this way, but it's not. It's dangerous. _

Something in Gerald's rusting mind finally clicked. To him, by the looks of things, his life expectancy was looking grimmer and grimmer.

He had obviously begun to hallucinate. It was like those cartoons he watched back when he was a kid. The imaginary lake in the hot desert. Except, instead of seeing something, he was hearing something. Possibly the last human voice he would ever hear before he died?

He paused to see if the voice would begin again. And it did. _You left that woman alone in the car. What if she would really die of heatstroke?_

Gerald gnashed his teeth together and forced his legs to move him forward. He needed help- he needed to get the damn voice to leave him alone...

The voice paused for a second, waiting for him to maybe react or speak his reaction. After the second, the voice continued. _You didn't even check her pulse, did you?_

Against his own desire, his legs stopped moving. A kind of dull panic rose to the surface in him. It wasn't a new panic, but it was one he had kept hidden since he had walked away from the wreckage. Had he- could he- have intentionally known that Layla might have survived?

But, as was usual with Gerald, panic and fear were soon replaced by anger. He quickly forgot that he had earlier believed that he had been imagining the voice. "Listen, even if I had left her there while she might have been still alive, it wouldn't have helped if I had taken her with me. She's probably too hurt to move at all."

_Who are you helping right now, then, if she IS still alive?_

"If she is alive," he said, scoffing. "Which I doubt, then I'm helping both of us by going for help."

_Wrong. You know that you're only trying to help yourself. I ask you again: did you check her pulse?_

"What difference would it have made?!" he said hoarsely. "I wouldn't of been able to bring her along, as injured as she probably is- was."

_It won't. _The voice paused. _If you turn back now, it won't. This is your last chance. Life or death. You may think that what you walk towards is salvation, but what you turn your back to is not a wreckage. It is your only hope._

"This proves it," Gerald said, grinning. He managed a weak chuckle. "you're just my imagination. _Not_ going for help is the only way to save myself? And what, exactly, is going to save my ass? A car?" he pretended to laugh. His laughter felt painful as it came out of his throat. "Nobody else but us was on this road. For the last few hours, I haven't seen so much as a fucking big rig. I am alone right now. I am _totally _alone."

_Salvation can come in many forms, if all you did was keep your mind and heart open to it._

"Yeah, yeah- you can talk all you want," he began to walk again- almost merrily. "it's not gonna stop me at all."

He tried to block out the voice as he continued on. As hard as he tried to ignore the voice, however, one thing the voice said that stuck out and for some reason gave him a horrible start was, _Now I am not the only one looking down at you. _

He shook that off only by distracting himself by looking at the ground around his constantly moving feet. It was only when he rose his head up again to look off in the horizon that he might have realized that the voice was gone. The importance of anything the voice had said, or of the existence of the voice at all, was quickly buried at the sight of the building far off in the distance. --


	10. Of Eavsdropping

**Chapter 10- Of Eavesdropping and the Importance of Phones**

**Author's Note: **Well, I had planned on this nearing more along the lines of 3,000 words or so, but you can blame my auntie dearest. I thought I should put something out for today- and since I don't know how long the omg-you're-leaving-for-college Lifetime story of the week drama dinner is going to last, I thought I could put this out into the world. Sorry. I seriously wish she would get a clue and quit bugging me with her empty promises and damn bratty, spoiled kids, but alas, it is MY time she must eat up, along with yours. I cannot say that to anyone else but you, my people, so enjoy the little slice that is the hell my life is becoming. My relatives seem to think that the last full week I have on planet Shitsville is reserved for sob time. Augh.

At any rate, enjoy.

-- _Mad Red Queen_

* * *

When he finally came to the entrance of the strange, abandoned-looking gas station, he believed that by all means he should have been foaming at the mouth. Gerald was exhausted, feeling lonesome, and still just slightly high off of the realization that not only had he survived a car crash that should have killed him, but he had found a building that was the first one he had seen in hours on the road.

After the ecstasy of realizing that he had found the building in the first place, thoughts that what he was walking into was actually just some old mess of a gas station were roughly pushed out of his mind. He could, after all, only handle so many set-backs all at once before he would snap.

As he walked into the building, he began to become aware of his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the, he had believed on first entering, unlit darkness. The second hint, other than the lack of lighting, that the building was abandoned was the apparent lack of air conditioning. Surely nobody who would live out in the middle of nowhere in this desert would survive without some air conditioning...

Looking around, he finally allowed his eyes to adjust to the deep gloom of the place. It took him a few seconds of blinking and trying to make out what was in the room before he caught sight of the soft glow of a small collection of freezers that were what a person would expect in the frozen section of a convienience store.

He sighed, relieved at the sight of the softly glowing piece of electricity. If there was still some form of electricity in this place, chances were good that there was somebody still here. That much was obvious, even to him.

As we walked over to the freezers, he nearly knocked into one of the shelves that stood up from the floor. As he brushed off the near accident, he saw the quantity of dust that lined everything on the shelf. Curious, Gerald picked up the box of what he could just barely identify as Bran Flakes, looking for the expiration date. After rubbing a thick skin of dust off, he read it. It had expired in May. Twenty years ago.

Gerald threw the box back down on the shelf, and wondered what twenty year old breakfast cereal would look like. He didn't want to think about what it would taste like. He walked past the shelves and to the first freezer he could reach. Opening the freezer wasn't quite the relief he had imagined. Obviously, the freezer, along with the rest of the place, had aged a great deal. There was just barely a chill coming out of the opened freezer.

Inside of the freezer were cartons of milk. While they looked newer, he nevertheless did not want to pick one of the cartons up. The smell of spoiled milk would most likely do the job that the sight of a corpse in a car had been unable to do before, and make him throw up all over the dusty, sand-layered linoleum floor of the gas station.

Grunting, he shut the freezer's door, moving to the one on the right of it. Opening it, he saw that it housed a great number of water bottles. His heart leapt in his chest.

He looked down at the lukewarm bottle he held in his hand. Reaching in, he removed one of the biggest bottles and replaced it with the lukewarm bottle. The bigger bottle wasn't as cold as he would have liked, but it cooled his hands nicely.

Sighing, Gerald pressed the water bottle to his forehead. He stood there with it on his forehead for a while, enjoying the sensation. As he did, his thoughts had stilled into a pool of contentment. It allowed him to grow accustomed to the deep silence of the building. Or, at least, what he had believed to be silent.

Beyond the big doorway that lead, he had guessed, deeper into the store, Gerald heard the buzz of a conversation that had already been winding through for, probably, awhile. Hearing the voices, he took soft steps towards the doorway, trying to be as quiet as possible. He crouched near the wall to the left of the doorway, and tried to listen to what he could.

The first thought he had was that somebody had a TV turned on somewhere beyond the doorway. As he heard the voices, though, he became aware that he was listening in on a conversation.

"...you ought'na consider just where you belong when it all'll happen." a strangely accented voice said. It sounded powerful to Gerald.

"But what are you saying?" another voice, aged, exhausted-sounding answered back. "This is insane... she set up that place like it ought ta be. You an' the boys take care of huntin'. She took care of all of ya." when he spoke again, his voice sounded as though it held a challenge in it. "Or did ya _forget_?"

The voice that had sounded intimidating and powerful spoke back. "It has been years..." the voice lowered, so much so that Gerald could not hear what was said, with the exception of the rumble of the whispering voice talking. The voice finally raised up to a level that Gerald could hear "...and anything either of you had ta'gether has to be dead by now. Ya must believe that, 'least."

The old man spoke then. He sounded more resolute. "Some bonds can't be killed. I think you know that, Jupe. So, why are ya here, when you knew all along I was gonna tell ya that?"

"Old man," Jupe said, anger rising in his voice. "make no 'stake. She will either be thrown out, or she will be hunted. She's too past her old self ta lead anymore. An' she's been feedin' us this lie since a few months 'go- she said that she's got it in good that our next leader is comin' in. No, wait, that's not exactly what she said," the voice sounded cruel as it turned into a laugh. The sound of the voice laughing made Gerald feel as though someone had begun to rub him all over with pieces of sand paper. "it was more like, "the comin' of a great lightenin' storm will bring the next destined leader of the Scorpion clan. The Mother clan." she's lost whatever it is that made her a leader, and she's jus' makin' up nonsense now." he laughed again, then spoke, bitterness plain in his voice. "An' the sad thing is, mos' of us are believin' her."

"She's never let you down before..." the old man said. Even to Gerald, who was fighting to listen, he sounded uncertain of himself- and frightened. "she's saved you guys many times from the other drifter clans... if it wasn't for her, you guys would have been-"

"I know what we would have been, if not for _her," _the powerful voice snarled. "she had her time ta be a great leader- but not anymore!"

Gerald had not been paying attention to what he had been sitting next to as he eavesdropped on the bizarre conversation. What he did not know was that as he listened in on the two voices, his left arm, which had unconsciously reached out to try to rest against the wall that he thought was right next to him, had actually hit a large mirror that had been resting near on the wall. The floor, dirty linoleum, did not stop the frame as the mirror began to slip suddenly off of the wall. Its bottom end slid out suddenly, hitting Gerald, scaring him more than hurting him.

Gerald yelped.

Gerald turned to look behind him, then around him, at first not comprehending what had caused the movement so close to him. As he settled down, he became aware of the deep silence that had replaced the talking that he had heard before. When he finally heard a voice speak from inside of the doorway finally, it was the more frightening man's voice that Gerald heard.

"What th' fuck was that?"

Gerald thought he was in some kind of horrific nightmare when he heard the footfalls that neared the doorway. He didn't think as he slammed his hand over his mouth- to stop from screaming or crying out- and scuttled backwards, past all of the freezers, then behind the shelf on the side of the store he was nearest to- like a spider. As soon as he got behind the shelf, he crouched low, not daring to peek at the person who he had heard walk into the room.

He waited, barely drawing in breaths for fear of being heard. Waited. And waited.

Then, finally: "Musta been one o' your mice."

"More like rats." the voice of the older man replied sarcastically.

The voices disappeared back into the doorway, too far away for Gerald to hear them as they continued talking. Not that Gerald cared anymore- he now cared too much about getting the hell out of the Twilight Zone he was in than hearing anymore of the bizarre conversation.

He didn't know how to go about it, though. Planning was not something Gerald did beyond the extent of what to pick up at the video store. And it did not help that Gerald was as shaken as he was, sitting behind a shelf, where he hoped that he was well and out of sight. He finally did come to the painful decision that he had to choose what was most important then- needing to stay inside, or finding a way to beat a retreat as fast and as quietly as possible.

A phone. That thought gave him hope.

They had to have a phone somewhere in the old building- and as long as it wasn't in the back room...

Gerald waited a moment before he turned and sat up to look around the shelf and around at the interior of the store. From where he was, he could see nothing that even looked remotely like a phone. No wall phone, nothing on the counter where the cash register was...

His eyes were drawn to the area where he had sat next to the large mirror and had listened in on the two men talking. Above where he had been sitting was a wall phone. His jaw nearly dropped to the floor. How was it that he hadn't noticed it?

Remembering to keep as quiet as possible, Gerald started to walk across the floor to the phone, crouching low to the floor. The fear of one of the men from before walking out of the back area as he went across the room was an overriding fear. Each footfall he executed was careful and painfully slow. When he finally reached the other side of the room, nobody had come out of the back area, and he had not caused any noises that would have brought any of the men out to investigate. He did not hesitate as he sat up from his crouch and grabbed onto the yellowed plastic of the phone. --


	11. The Kill Joy

**Chapter 11- The Kill Joy**

**Author's Note:** I actually wanted to incorporate a lyric from or the title of the song "Interstate Love Song" by the Stone Temple Pilots- but it didn't feel right. So I settled on some of my own brand of macarbe humor for the chapter name. I hope you enjoy not just my chapter name, but the story as well.

I also hope you approve of the piece I added in in the end. What is it that I'm babbling about?

Read and find out.

--_ Mad Red Queen_

* * *

Gerald was almost dizzy with relief. The phone had a dial tone. Because of his surroundings, he had believed that it wouldn't work. Pressing the phone to his ear, Gerald jabbed nine one one into the wall piece, his heart feeling more like the noisy, vibrating engine of a motorcycle.

_Brrrinnng...brriinnng...brrinnnggg... "_Hello, this is nine one one- what is your emergency?"

Gerald was at a loss for words at first. What was more important to mention first? The two insane men who had been talking earlier- and who might have killed him? The car crash?

"Hi, I've been in an accident, and I think the gas station I'm in has some guys in the back who might hurt me..."

"Sir, sir," from somewhere in his panicked mind, he recognized the voice on the other end as a female's. It had a slight southern accent to it. "I'm going to need you to calm down. Now, where are you?" Gerald forced himself to slow down his quickened breathing. Even to his own ears, he had sounded as though he had been babbling. Speaking slowly, he rattled off the highway he and Layla had been traveling- before she had crashed on it. "Now, sir, can you tell me the address of the gas station you're in right now?"

Gerald looked around rapidly. "Uh, no, but it's called the Gas Haven. Do you know where a place called the Gas Haven is?"

"Sir," the woman's voice was irritatingly calm and professional. "You'll have to calm down. You have to give me the address of the gas station- that highway you're on stretches on for so long that it'd be like asking us to look for a needle in a haystack. If the attendant or the cashier is nearby, please ask him for the address, or go outside. I will stay on the line while you get the address."

"But, but the attendant- he's probably one of the insane guys in the back- I heard them talking about fricking shit like, like killing this woman, about these weird people- things- called drifter clans, and, and-"

"You're not making any sense, sir. Are you dehydrated? Have you been hallucinating?"

"No, I'm not fucking making this up! You have to believe-"

A voice, loud, stopped him mid-sentence. "Who's there?!"

Reacting without meaning to, Gerald shoved the phone back into its cradle and leapt backwards. His fear- that the voice had been directly from behind him- was relieved when he realized that the voice had come from the back area. The men were not, at least, for the moment, right behind him.

He started to walk as fast as he could without running back to his spot behind the shelf. As he did, he heard the sound of feet hitting the linoleum from just outside of the doorway that he had been pressed against.

_Please go back inside, like before. Please, oh god, please don't come in here._

The voice he recognized as the more powerful-sounding one spoke. He was still, thankfully, on the other side of the room. "I know that was somebody yellin'. Did somebody get back from scoutin' early?" Silence then. He heard footsteps coming towards him, loud on the linoleum. Gerald was literally frozen in fear. He heard the voice speak again. "Vult? Goggle? Are you guys hidin' in here?" More silence. The footsteps got closer and closer to Gerald. "I know that one of you's here. Just come on out." Getting closer. "How much didja you hear? You know I was kiddin', right, with Willy? I'd never think about hurtin' her..."

Gerald squeezed his eyes shut. How far- and for how long- could he run if he could just go through the entrance? Could he find a way back here to use the telephone?

One more footstep closer to him. Two. Then, suddenly, he heard the sound of electronic crackling- the old kind, like how imagined an old-time radio would sound before tuning into a station. He heard a voice coming from what had made the crackly noise.

"Boss, boss, bad-"

Jupe snarled. "I tol' you not ta call me that- anyone can be listenin' in, ya shithead. Tell me, now: whass wrong?"

The voice on the other end of whatever he was talking on stuttered an apology, then said, "I've been watchin' a car comin' south on the highway. I los' sight when I went ta go git Goggle- but when I looked back, it looks like the car's crashed on th' side o' the road..."

"'old on, 'old on!" Jupe shouted. "There was prey comin' this way... an' when were ya gonna tell me?!"

"J...Jupiter, I, I, I was gonna to... I promise-"

"Never mind." Jupiter said, growling. "So did either o' you idjits check th' car fer survivors?"

The voice hesitated before speaking. "...Yeah... I sawed two earlier... now there's only one in the car."

"Didja kill the other 'un?"

"The one thass gone?"

"No, piss for brains, the one left in the car."

"...She look dead ta me."

"And the other 'un?"

"Well..." the voice on the other end, very nervous sounding, hesitated once more. "We're not too sure..."

"I knew it. I knew it was a fuckin' mistake ta leave bot o' you idjits up there 'lone to watch th' road. Now ya've gone n' fucked all o' us over! Ya find that other 'un afore I have ta go down there an' do yer jobs for both o' you, or ya'll be lookin' forward to a beatin' once we all get back ta th' village!"

The voice, already shaky enough before, now sounded as though the person was about to begin crying. "I sorry, I sorry!" the male voice cried, sounding childish. "I didn't mean-"

"Just do yer job! Find the other 'un, even if he ran in th' desert, if he ran back down the highway, or if..." Suddenly Jupiter stopped. Gerald heard the sound of cloth being moved, and the audible click of something. Gerald felt as though his heart was about to stop dead in his chest.

The footsteps resumed their walk. He was walking nearer to the end of the shelf. He would discover him in a matter of seconds.

Being careful to make absolutely no noise, Gerald scooted backwards until he slipped to the other side of the shelf. He began moving backwards, putting as much distance as he could from him and Jupiter. He slipped along the linoleum backwards, certain that at any moment the man would peek over to behind the shelf and see him. Gerald felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

Silence then, with no footsteps. "Come on out. I know ya were in that car wreck. If ya come on out now, I can call th' ambulance to help yer friend. Don't ya want ta help yer friend?" more footsteps on the linoleum. "Come on, I know yer here. Jus'... come on out."

Gerald had scooted as far back on the shelf as he could. At the edge of the shelf, Gerald finally had a chance to get a look at Jupiter. He hesitated. What if he wasn't a human being- but was, instead, a monster? And, not a boogeyman-type monster. But a real one. The monsters that old stories were about. The kind that killed men, women, and children alike, and who ate them, using the bones left over to make necklaces, bracelets, or to grind up to use as seasoning?

Gerald had to shake himself out of his fear. It was a stupid fear, after all. The man named Jupiter might be insane and want to kill him, yes- but there were no such things as monsters. He had grown out of that belief back when he had gotten over the use of a night-light.

He took in a deep breath before he peeked over the counter's edge and up the middle aisle. He looked at the shape of the man turned with his back to him.

The man had long, long, greasy brown hair. He wore a heavy trench coat that dragged on the floor. Even from only being able to see him from the back, Gerald got more than an appreciation for how filthy he was.

Well, he wasn't a monster. That theory, at least, was ruled out. But that left him with the question of just who this man was.

One word that struck Gerald from the conversation he had heard before in the back room was _drifters. _Was this man homeless or something like it?

The man walked closer to the end of the aisle. Gerald's mind buzzed with the need to survive. He rejected many ideas with what to do then before he settled on one when the man finally turned around. Gerald had to duck back behind the shelf. He waited for a moment, and when Jupiter did not rush at him, Gerald looked over the edge of the shelf. As he had hoped, Jupiter had gone down the aisle on the other end of the store.

Struggling to remain crouched, Gerald rushed down the opposite way, still behind the shelf. It was the door he was hoping to reach before anything bad happened, and he was spotted by Jupiter.

His knees were aching and he was out of breath as he reached the end of the aisle- but the sight of the dirty glass door, bright with the blaring light of midday, made everything else seem small in comparison.

Gerald had been thinking about it, and he had decided that out of all of that junk he had seen in the front, he would be able to hide until he thought it was safe to sneak back in and use the phone-

He had been about ready to crawl out of the moderate safety that was behind the long shelf, but as he was poised to break for the door (still on his hands and knees) a shape appeared just outside of the door.

He was able to see all of it (it couldn't have been a real human being- it was too horrible, too horrible), although its face was darkened as it was turned away from the sunlight. He wished that he could not see its face- that distorted, unreal tumor-like mass that was where a human being's nose should have been.

Dirty blond hair stuck out from under the edges of an old fashioned bowler's cap, looking as filthy as Jupiter's had been. On his body, he, too, wore clothes that suggested he was as unclean and wild as the other man Gerald had seen looked like.

He heard screaming- he barely registered it as his. It felt like he was watching some movie in slow motion as the thing turned to look over at him, its head tilted to the side in a sick imitation of a puppy's look of confusion.

Then the thing reached for the door's handle and threw the door open.

Gerald fought to get to his feet, not paying attention to the fact that he was still screaming, and began to run in the other direction. The air, the expired food, and the freezers all blurred past him. He didn't know where he was going, he didn't care. Through all of his fear, enough to make his already strained mind fully snap, he felt something in him that made him want to break down in tears, but also made him want to begin laughing as though he was insane. _I've doomed myself with my big mouth._

Gerald skidded on the linoleum as he got to the end of the center aisle. He turned to run into the doorway that he had earlier sat next to. He hoped dearly that there was either a back door through there- or a weapon.

He ran past the threshold, the thought of the two in the room behind him an overriding fear. His heart was pounding so hard that he barely registered that a gunshot had gone off. Or that a second had. Or the third.

Pain finally pierced Gerald's abdomen, his shoulder- and his chest. He grabbed at his chest, stunned almost as much at the notion that he had been fired at as well as the feeling of the bullets ripping through his body. He sank to the ground, finally conceding to defeat without fully realizing he was, choking.

He sank down face first with no real idea that he was. As he was dimly aware of the presence of others around him, Gerald was, in a way, grateful that the last thing he was going to see wasn't the faces of the monster-creatures- if the thing that had caused Gerald to scream in the first place was any indication of what the others would too look like.

When he choked again, he felt something hot- liquid- spurt out in his ragged gasps. He only realized it when he stopped gasping for a moment, but the sound of the gun going off again had been loud enough to create a loud, near painful buzzing in his head.. As he began to sink more onto the linoleum, the buzzing seemed to cease, and he heard the unforgettable voice of the long haired one named Jupiter speak.

"I believe I've found th' survivor. Now, didja call fer back-up already fer that wreck?" --

It had was bad enough that the gas prices had forced Ben Givins to work harder than he ever had in years- but when he had woke up that early afternoon, he knew, even before he fully opened his eyes, that he was behind schedule.

It was hot in his truck. He had to cut corners everywhere these days- and that had included air conditioning. He was sweating buckets as he drove.

At forty-three, he was no model of a man. His gut rolled out from every shirt he wore, and the last time he had looked in a truck stop's bathroom mirror, he was starting to grow one of those scruffy, mountain-main-type beard/mustache combinations. But the one thing he did have- one thing that he may have once prided himself in- was his ability to drive his rig with the utmost expertise.

His best-earned skill, after many years on the road, had been the ability to multi-task. Now, he didn't do it often- he would usually opt to pull over to eat a particularly messy meal- but sometimes, when it was a long, empty stretch of unceasing highway that he was on, he would turn around, one hand keeping the wheel stilled and on course firmly, and he would choose from his stash of cassettes and CD's.

On that particular late, late afternoon, it had been a very, very long stretch of highway he was driving on. Usually, at speeds as high as what he was driving, he would have waited until he had to stop somewhere before he would have chosen to dick around with his music and audio books, but he had not seen anyone, literally, for hours. Also, his CD- a new one, which is why it made him angry more than any other reason- stopped working as he was mid-way through a song.

Growling, he turned backwards, digging around for the probably now nonworking CD's case. He frowned. It seemed to have disappeared.

He kept looking, feeling angrier and angrier that he had bought that Greatest Hits collection at a truck stop two days ago for fourteen dollars, and now it had broke on him. Eventually, it became more of a need to set things right- the broken CD would be out of his player, and he could wing it back onto his back wall- than the fact that he wanted to listen to music then.

He didn't care that he was still driving- or even that he had, unchecked, excellerated over the speed limit- he just kept looking for that case.

It felt like eternity, but as he flicked past a CD case he knew he had flicked past at least three times already, he finally saw the cover with the smiling man in the white cowboy hat. As he reached over to, finally, pick the damned case up, he got a jolt as the CD player began to play again, as though it had not stalled for more than thirty, forty seconds before.

Shaking his head, Ben pulled himself back up and into his seat. Eyes now completely on the road, Ben reached down next to him to grab the warm, mostly empty, tin of Red Bull he had been drinking for the last couple of hours. He sighed as he scanned the road ahead for any signs of life. There appeared to be none.

What he did not know was that from the time the CD had stopped playing and he had been turned around, looking for the right case, and he had rocketed faster than he would normally have down the road, he just missed two landmarks that might have held his attention for different reasons- a car wreck, where a woman was going to come to in the next couple of minutes, and a gas station, where a man's still-warm body was being drug out the back door, to be thrown in the back of a pickup truck. --


	12. A Mighty Fine Home Run

**Chapter 12- The Man Hits A Mighty Fine Home Run**

**Author's Note: **This is officially the first chapter that I've worked on since moving into my dorm room. That's right- I'm in college now! Okay, that's besides the point- I never want to turn into one of those douches who tell their life stories and who all but suck off whoever it was who happened to leave nonsensical reviews amounting to "omG u R so aweshum!1!11!!" in the author's notes.

Okay, so despite this chapter's title, no, you are not reading something I mistaked for my baseball story. All will be made clear as crystal soon enough.

(As an end note to all kids out there- when you get into a college dorm room, make sure you're certain that you will get along with your roommate. You CAN move out, or he/she can if you can't get along at all. And that is all for now.)

* * *

It was too late for Layla to have been able to see Ben Givins' big rig when it passed by her. By the time she could have been in any shape to realize that she could have been in distance of being rescued, she was left to sit in the car.

She was so frightened that she barely noticed the nearly baking heat in the car, or the soreness that encompassed every part of her body. She worried about where Gerald was.

As she had been sitting in the car, it had clicked, somewhere in Layla's frightened mind, that while the outside of the car more resembled a large, empty tin can that been crushed until it was nearly unrecognizable, the inside looked very nearly in the same condition that it had been while she and Gerald had been riding in it the past few hours. Along with what had happened to her already, the contrast of the car- the almost ordered, normal inside- and the crushed, wrecked look on the outside- lent an almost fun house, unreal feel to the moment.

When she turned her head up to look at the sky, she felt uneasy as she realized what it was that was her only real choice in the situation was. Unease, yes, because she did not want to walk down the highway in the heat, but also because she had already noted the loss of the last bottle of water. How long could she wander around the highway, looking for any sign of life without any water?

There was also something else in the back of her mind that whispered, _but how long can I afford to sit here?_ The longer she sat there, the larger the distance between Gerald and the water he held was going to grow wider and wider.

She barely hesitated as she stood up and began her walk down the highway in the direction that the car was facing. As she walked, not only was the walk painful to her body, still tenderized from the crash, but she felt uncomfortable. She could not at first pinpoint the cause, but when a minuscule bite of wind picked up around her, picking up much of the hair off of her hot and sweaty face and neck, she saw a strange shape off in the distance. Her gaze flew in the direction of the strange shape.

It was atop the great wall of red rock to the right of the road. She knew it wasn't literally a wall; it was such a large rock that it was massive in size from the direction she was looking at it.

When she looked up at the strange formation of rocks atop the large red wall of rock, she came to the decision that there was nothing except for the rocks that could have possibly gained her attention. She blinked a few times, but continued to stare up at the rocks, half hoping that what she believed she had seen- a shape that stood out from the rocks- would appear. She eventually gave up to continue to wander down the highway.

But as she continued walking down the road, she couldn't shake off the feeling of unease that was tied to the phantom shape she had seen off in the distance. But while she had seen the shape for a matter of moments, something had its continued gaze on her.

--

The walking hurt, feeling most like how a door with rusted or near broken hinges must feel with every step Layla took.

It had hurt most when she had been taking the first few steps. Eventually, though, even the soreness had given into the metronomic, dull feel of the heat. The world became a haze of heat and walking along the long road. She didn't know how long she had walked, but as she had walked, she had been trying to focus on anything but her thirst,and the beat of the sun. Then finally, there came a point where it became impossible to ignore her thirst. She could not move her tongue in her mouth without it being stuck to a dry spot in her mouth.

Since she was a child, she had been brought to a Catholic church every Sunday that her father didn't have to work. When she had grown up and had lived with Dave, she had quit going to church. Since her father's funeral, she could truthfully say that she had not prayed in earnest since that day. But, while she stumbled along the road in a near panic for fear of dying from thirst or heatstroke, she felt herself praying that something would happen so that she would not die there, on the road.

Her wish was to come true.

It appeared first as a dot on the long, long strip of highway in front of her. Layla believed, at first, that she was imagining something. She rubbed at her eyes, something that she had become accustomed to doing since she had begun walking down the road, on account of all of the sand that had been blowing into her face. When she opened them, she expected the image on the hot patch of highway to disappear.

It didn't.

She felt her heart, already pumping overtime, beat a fast tattoo on her rib cage. She barely stopped herself from running down the road as she saw more of the shape forming as time passed quickly by. Even when she tried to stop herself from running at the approaching vehicle, her pace had quickened into a jog.

As the vehicle came closer, she became aware that the vehicle was an aging pickup truck. She could see nothing of the person, or the persons, in the truck's cab. If she had to, her best guess would be that the pickup was an old Ford.

When the truck came even closer, Layla, who was walking on the left side of the road, began jumping up and down, yelling out to the truck. It slowed in front of her, then stopped. Layla didn't stop to look into the truck's cab. When the truck came to a full stop, she only registered, mentally, that there were two in the cab. She ran to the driver's side and peered into the opened window of the driver's side door.

At first, the face that she saw through the window looked, to her, as though it belonged to an old man. He had turned to look at her, and as she looked at him, he looked at her with a frightening combination of shock and burning anger.

The reason he looked so old to her at first was because of the disfigurement he had in his face. What looked like lines resulting from age was really long lines of scarring. And his mouth-

Where his face was horrible, his mouth- his jaw- was worse. The way his jaw and mouth looked, it seemed that something bad had happened to him to have wrecked his face up. His jaw seemed to jut out at a bizarre angle, and his upper lip was split to the bottom edge of his nose. It took Layla a moment to place what it was called when a lip was missing the flesh in the upper lip. _Hare lip, _she remembered after a moment, _It's a hare lip that he has._

His hair was a steel gray that seemed to sprout up everywhere on the top of his head. His hands were still tight on the wheel. It seemed that the shock in his eyes was a genuine one.

Both of them stared at each other for awhile, with Layla waiting for him to roll his window down. He didn't.

She saw his arm shoot down to the door, and her first thought was that he was going to make a move for the door lock. Fear gripped at her.

Grabbing the door's opening mechanism, she yanked the door open, and, throwing herself at the driver, she yelled out, "Please, for the love of god, just take me with you!"

She was leaning over, her hands had a solid grip on the man's shoulders. It was because she was staring pleadingly at the driver that she had not seen the horror that was the passenger immediately after she threw the door open. As soon as her eyes darted over to the man in the passenger's side seat, she was quickly made aware of the passenger's appearance.

He was a horrible creature- he looked no more human than the lizard that she had seen earlier that day and had imagined conversing with. His face was very pale- which seemed to only aid in contrasting against the splotch on the right side of his face that was the color of rotten strawberries. The splotch covered his eye- but it did not hide how it seemed to be stuck together, whether by the nauseating path of pus-like liquid that came from his shut eye, or from another, unknown sort of disfigurement. His mouth and nose was equally as disfigured- his nose, the bottom, more specifically, seemed tilted, so that one part was higher than the other. And his teeth-! Many were missing, but what few he had were enormous, and jutted out from reddened, greatly swollen gums. And she could see the misshapen mass that was his head, his skull, because of his lack of hair. Or, at least, much of it- what little he had was a blond-white cloud that, like the driver's, seemed to sprout out in haphazard, strange directions atop his great head.

Layla was immediately disgusted and frightened. She tried to jerk backwards and out of the truck. When she did, though, she realized that she was being held in place- by the driver.

He was gripping her upper arms in an anything but gentle grip. As she was held in place by his bruising grip, Layla wailed in pain and stopped moving immediately- despite the fact that the driver was a short man, and he looked as though he did not have near as much muscle tone as his, she then realized, passenger did, he had some unknown source of great strength that made her strength, in comparison, seem near infantile. It was an almost animalistic in the amount that she felt.

"Please, please- agh!" He gripped her even harder. ""Just let... let me go. Were you sent by... by Gerald? He was gone by the time I, I woke up, and-" she stopped as she saw the menacing gleam of silver that glinted with a beam of sunlight that hit it. It was a gun with a very long barrel. And, to Layla's shock, the driver's hand was tight on the gun's handle- and his finger was poised on the trigger.

The man, seeing her gaze stuck on the gun he had a tight grip on, scowled at her. Layla's eyes rose back up to his, begging silently where she felt unable to speak. As she looked into his eye, she felt that, for just a moment, she could see into his pale blue eyes as though they were truly a window of his soul. For just a moment, she believed that she could see something soft in his eyes that was of great contrast to the hardness that she had seen before. And then, it was gone- replaced with a merciless cold.

Layla felt as though her life was literally slipping away as he rose the gun up to point it at her head. It would have taken a miracle to save her life. --

As both stared each other down- the murdered and her murderer- both were very much aware of the audible click of the gun's hammer being laid down. Layla's lips trembled, but she felt too shocked to cry- but strangely enough, someone did cry out.

The passenger, who neither the driver or Layla had been paying much attention to, had begun to squeal. It did not sound normal, or in any way human, as a matter of fact, and Layla, at first, could not believe that the giant sitting in the passenger's seat could not have been making the noise. Yet he was.

The driver never looked away from Layla, nor did he lower the gun from where it was aimed at her forehead. His malformed lips twitched angrily as he took in two deep breaths, then snarled out words that Layla could barely believe that could be capable of forming in his throat.

"What's the fuck's the matter wit' you?!"

The passenger did not seem at all jolted by the angry, animalistic voice that the driver had spoken in. And, Layla saw, the passenger was pointing at her. For a long moment, he seemed to struggle with words. His lips moved, at times he jutted his front, buck tooth out to graze his bottom lip as he spoke. "Sh... sh... she drifter... sh... she d'ifter!"

Layla took it for meaningless babble at first, then she saw the frozen look of shock on the driver's face. His eyes, which had seemed to burn with their blues, looked as though they had been quickly stifled of their intensity. When he turned to look back at her, he was looking at her as though she was an object of great confusion.

His eyes were stuck on her face at first. She felt as though a blush was building up fast in her face, making her face, already warm from the heat, feel as though they were burning. When he lowered his gaze from her face, down her neck, however, she felt the familiar burning sensation on her neck. His gaze felt as though it was burning her skin- even through her clothes.

Down her neck, pausing on her chest- Layla was sure that she was blushing for real as he did- then moving across each arm, then her hands. Her left, first, then her right...

He was obviously surprised at the sight of Layla's malformed hand. And his own hand, which had been tight as any prisoner;s shackle on her wrist, loosened slightly. The feel on his heavily calloused fingertips on her wrist was, in a way that was disturbing, given the situation, almost tender.

As he stared at her hand- a feeling of burning building up in her right hand- Layla was suddenly ever most aware of the pressure that had been on her left wrist, as it was on her right. Or, more appropriately, the lack of the bruising grip on her left hand wrist.

_Yes, the driver's right hand... the gun... it's holding the gun... _

And, he had to let go of her left hand to hold the gun. And the gun...

The driver's eyes were still transfixed on her right hand, so he did not see the way she had locked her eyes on his other hand, the one holding the gun. He still had the gun, but it was a limp grip at best that he had on the handle. He had laid it and his hand next to him. If it had been a normal life she had lived for the past few years- or even for the past few hours- she might have been shocked by her coldly calculated decision.

Grabbing the gun first was a risky move- he was still in a state of either disbelief of shock, and he could have been easy to get the better of for the time being, but he still had a hold on her right wrist. How easy would it be for him to exert his grip once more on her wrist, and twist until she had a compound fracture that would ruin her wrist?

She kept her gaze on the gun, keeping her eyes on the prize, as it were, because she believed that if she concentrated on the driver, she'd lose her shit, then and there. Because whatever had surprised the driver and his passenger about her- her hand- would not stop these people from killing her, when the time came for the driver to return his deadly attention back to her. In one quick movement, all of the planning she had played out in her head was realized.

Her hand shot out from the driver's weak grip, and her left hand made a grab for the gun. Somewhere in the back of her mind, behind all of the adrenalin and panic, she was surprised at the ease in which she could have just as easily reached over and casually grabbed the gun up from the driver's hand. It felt far too easy for her as she pulled herself out of the truck's cab and drew the gun, pointing it at the driver.

"Get... get out of the truck!" She shouted to him.

The driver seemed to be in a state of shock as he stared at Layla, his eyes very large. It took him a few seconds before his eyes squeezed themselves into tight, angry slits. He bent down, his hands seeking something under or near his feet. Layla didn't register what he was doing until she saw the object that he carried up to his lap. It was a bat.

Layla had to force herself to not panic at the sight of the ugly, utterly violent object that the driver held. She had no reason to be afraid of this man- or any weapons he had- anymore. She had his gun. She had to force herself to talk through the painful, sand-papery feel of her throat. "Put the bat down and get out of the truck."

If it wasn't for the fact that he was physically abnormal, Layla would have nonetheless known that he wasn't normal because of his reaction to her. And to the gun. He slid out of the truck- almost calmly so- but he kept the handle of the bat tight in his right fist. Layla had to back away, keep out of range of him being able to swing the bat at her.

But he kept coming at her. Slow, purposeful steps. She kept the gun pointed at him and matched each step he made towards her with one of her own. It was a sick, dark dance that lead Layla, eventually, into stepping off of the road and into the sand. Her mind continued to scream at her to shoot him. He couldn't stop a bullet, no matter how powerful he seemed. But there was another, much less defined voice in her that whispered quickly to her in warning like an unconfident advisor who was intent to nevertheless make its point known to his Liege.

To her, the man looked so much like some mighty and fearless God- or some ancient, unbeaten warrior. Could he really be affected by something like a bullet? _Or would it just make him angrier?_

She was never so off-put by a man in her entire life with fear. Even Dave never made her feel so frightened. But then again, Dave was completely human- a jackass, a bastard, sure- but he seemed to be a human.

But when the man began to bring the bat up, and her hands began to shake erratically, something in her clicked, along with the click of the gun's hammer, which she pulled back. The trigger under her finger felt like something weightless as she jerked it backwards. A sound, most like the jolting crack of a nearby strike of lightening, tore at her ears.

Layla cried out, shutting her eyes at the sound of the gun going off. When she opened them, the sight she had expected to see, the man curled up o the ground, clutching something on his body as though in pain, was not to be found. What she did see, however, was the man, even closer that time. Not a part of him looked so much as grazed by the killing bullet.

Her hands had let her down in their erratic trembling and she had missed.

She stepped backwards at a faster pace than before, trying to put some distance between her and the man. The man walked faster too, seeming as though he was humoring her, playing with her. It panicked her further.

Her shaking was completely uncontrollable. The only thing she could hope for in shooting the man was to try to aim her gun at him as best as she could- hope that it struck a vital- and shoot. And she had better hope that she had struck something that would take him down immediately, because she had the feeling that he would try to kill her with him dying strength. How many bullets were there, exactly, in the gun?

She attempted to line a shot up as best she could, then shot the gun again with no amount of calm left in her. She winced and shut her eyes again as the gun let out a loud crack and jerked her arms back. It nearly hit her in the face.

She opened her eyes again. The driver had stopped walking, but he was not clutching at anything on his body, nor did he look shocked or frightened. In fact, he was not even looking at her, but past her-

She felt herself pitch forward, her head aiming for the ground below her, then her face bouncing off of the hot ground before she felt the intense shock wave of pain pulse from the back of her head. She took in a deep breath to cry out, but she felt as though consciousness was slipping through her fingers. It was a familiar sensation when she lost control of her ability to control her body, but she was, for a moment, very much aware of the sounds around her.

Footsteps nearing her, then stopping very close to her body on the ground. There were voices, but she could not understand what they were saying. The only thing she could recognize were the tones of both of the people from the truck's cab- then the feeling of being jabbed with something blunt on her back. It was the only warning she got as she dully registered the feeling of something striking her back, hard. She felt no pain, but she wanted to wince at how sore she would no doubt feel once she regained consciousness. It took her a moment before she realized that the odds were that she would never be allowed to do such a thing as to regain consciousness. It was not a settling thought, but in her state, it was also neither anything particularily un-settling.

It wasn't like her to want to want to wallow in her own predicaments, and even unconscious, she trivialized it with a sarcastic, humorless thought. _I get killed by a man, and wouldn't you just know it, it's not my husband. --_


End file.
